1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a software vending instrument or machine.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Nowadays, a variety of software programs for video games, and visual (audiovisual) software programs for business and educational purposes are marketed and sold in a large scale, keeping pace with the wide spread or popularization of microcomputers or personal computers. Such software programs are available on the market in the form of tape cassettes or floppy disks in which original or source programs are duplicated or copied by software manufacturers. These tape cassettes and floppy disks having duplicate programs are sold by local software shops or dealers.
In dealing such software-loaded tape cassettes or floppy disks, it is difficult to keep an accurate record or have a predictable prospect of demands of the individual software packages on hand. Accordingly, the software shop owners encounter a great deal of trouble in maintaining optimum stock of the individual packages of software program. For example, programs for popular video games may become out of stock without recognition of insufficiency of the inventory of those programs. In this case, the shop owners have to place an order with a manufacturer or supplier. Further, the shop owner may be at a loss how to dispose of such programs that are not attractive and left in stock in a large amount.
On the other hand, a purchaser of programs for video games, for example, has no means to get concrete on-the-spot information of the content of a game which is played by the program which the purchase is going to buy at a software shop. Thus, the purchaser tends to buy a program, without an exact idea of how the game is actually animated by the program.